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Rwanda: Diaspora Community Contributing to the Country’s Development

The director general of the Rwanda Community Abroad in Minafet, Parfait Gahamanyi

The director general of the Rwanda Community Abroad in Minafet, Parfait Gahamanyi

Migration for Development (MIDA) Great Lakes program closes its fourth phase which started in 2008 aiming at contributing to capacity building of the Rwandan, Burundian and Congolese public and private institutions by supporting the circulation of resources from the African Diaspora in order to support the sustainable human in their home countries.

According to the director general of the Rwanda Community Abroad in the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation (Minafet), Parfait Gahamanyi, MIDA has helped the Rwandan Diaspora make tremendous contributions to their home community especially in skills transfer and capacity building.

Through institutions like the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), the Institute of Animal Husbandry (ISAE-Busogo), the Kigali University Teaching Hospital (CHUK), Ndera Mental hospital, Gihundwe District Hospital in Rusizi, and Tubiteho daycare center (which caters for children suffering from a mental handicap), MIDA helps experts to pass on their skills to the local community.

“MIDA provides their tickets and accommodation, and the experts do their job free of charge. They have been focusing mainly on ICT related issues, where they have equipped the institutions with skills and also ICT,” Gahamanyi said.

He said that although donors such as Belgium who have been sponsoring the program are pulling out, the initiative will continue.

“The Diaspora experts have been training their colleagues living in the country, and they now have the skills and are able to make the transfer of capacity,” the DG said. “Meanwhile, we’ll continue to ensure that Rwandans living abroad are connected to what is happening in the country.”

According to Sabine Boeltken, the MIDA Great Lakes coordinator who also works for the International Organization for Migration, the program started in 2001 and has been implemented in phases. The fourth phase which has just closed aimed at strengthening the national authorities’ capacities to manage the mechanisms of long-term relations between national actors in the Great Lakes region on the one hand, and the African Diaspora living in Europe on the other.

“We wanted to sustainably strengthen the capacities of partner institutions targeting an economic and social impact on local development,” she said, adding that the phase promoted the Migration for Development approach to national and international players to maximize the potential of the African Diaspora to contribute to the development of their countries of origin.

Source: The Rwanda Focus

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